The thing about modern capitalism seems to be that EVERYBODY plays, whether they want to or not. Your money is tied to everyone else's. No one cashes out, ever. You might have money today, but you just might lose it all tomorrow, and they're nothing you can do to remove the threat.

In principle, it's the least stable system - and indeed, even most of its supporters tout freedom of opportunity, not stability, as its main benefit. When you play, you could wind up a billionaire, or you could wind up a hobo... but you HAVE to play. Not an ideal for those who hate taking risks.

To Advocate W: “Disingenuous” implies dishonesty or deceit. I believe you meant to say “wrong” because I assume you don’t know the cartoonist’s motives and simply disagree with him.

If you will permit me to take a few of your thoughts for granted, my socialist friends tend to think their actions spring from an altruistic heart and concern for people, especially poorer people who tend to fall by the wayside in a purely capitalist meritocracy. I don’t agree, and the cartoonist may not agree as well. I believe socialists are concerned about their own security and invoke helping the poor to make their desire for self-preservation seem more generous than it actually is.

Conservatives like me believe socialism belongs right where the cartoonist put it. We see socialism as an enervating force that makes people dependent upon government rather than themselves. But worse, it forces EVERYONE to adhere to their socialistic beliefs whether they want to or not.

In this respect, socialism is as coersive as communism or dictatorship. If you believe everyone should have access to food stamps, fine. I have no problem with that, but you pay for the program and assuage your conscience but leave mine alone.

I do not object to Obamacare for those who want it. What I object to is being forced to pay for it whether I want it or not. I see this as an inherent weakness of socialism in that it leads to what I consider to be ham-fisted arrogance and makes socialists controllers of the first water.

From my point of view , the self-interest that causes a man or a woman to risk everything they have and work 14 hours a day is about as admirable as human behavior gets. And the impulse to denigrate them as mean-spirited and selfish is about as low as human sentiment sinks.

I’ll grant you that reality is not always what it seems. Take bankers, for example: the Jamie Dimons and Robert Rubins of this world, who are considered prototypical capitalists but who are, in fact, prototypical socialists in that they rely on government and moral hazard to protect their scrawny behinds from risk. They aren’t capitalists; They’re creatures of government as dependent upon it as a food stamp recipients. They are just more subtle and manipulative.

And corporations that send lobbyists to Washington are often no better; although, it can get dicey trying to determine which corporations are there because they’re looking for government favors and those who are there trying to protect themselves from those who are there looking for government favors.

No one ever thinks badly of themselves. At the very start of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ (1936), Dale Carnegie emphasized this point with examples such as the following:

" “I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”
That’s Al Capone speaking. Yes, America’s most notorious Public Enemy – the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn’t condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor – an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor. "

Very interesting, Atrahasis. I amend E.B. White's title for an article from "One Man's Meat Is Another Man's Potatoes". to read: "One Man's Meat Ia Another Man's Tommy Gun". Only in Chicago politics (BTW, It is useful to remember that Chicago politics is the cesspool from which the Great Uniter emerged.)

Of course it wasn’t Chicago crime or Chicago politics but the unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism of Chicago economics that Naomi Klein condemned in ‘The Shock Doctrine’. On the available evidence, Kal doesn’t seem to have read the book, but dammit, you can’t read everything.

Come on, now. Chicago politics were and are far more corrosive than laissez-faire capitalism ever was. Naomi is living in the distant past; the Great Uniter is very much 21st century. But, hey, you can read whatever you like.

Actually bankers in the Western world have hit upon a way to achiever something far more offensive to humanity than communism, socialism or feudalism: Slavery-Minus.

Bankers go to great efforts to place people into debt, and then bleed them mercilessly, but not so much as to kill them as one needs one's debt slaves to stay alive.

This is better than traditional slavery because in Slavery-Minus, the banker/exploiter does not have to feed, clothe or house his debt-slaves -- in fact, he doesn't even have to meet them. He just acquires them through modern marketing and multi-level sales channels.

Slavery has always been a profitable business. America's bankers, with great help from America's insider-trader-ridden Congress, have reinvented slavery in a form which is so much more profitable to the banks who have acquired so many millions of debt-slaves in America.

Capitalism only works with gold and silver as money. Very few people in uniforms, few regulations with approximately 1% or less of the population actually working for government. No employment statistics kept. No personal taxation. Company tax probably at 33.3% with 3.3% going to government for mainly defense purposes and 30% equally divided daily between all citizens as a dividend to promote local production. Small prison population, no executions, no drug wars, minimal corruption. Not yet tried.

Socialism works with paper as money. Reasonable amount of uniforms evident mainly as police. Approx. 50-70% of the population paid money by governments. Moderate regulations. Medium prison population, no executions. Drug wars, high commercial alcohol consumption. Low to medium unemployment. Corruption usually restricted between governments and business groups. In use through out western Europe. Possibly about to collapse into Fascism for a short time.

Fascism works with paper and often vouchers as money. Usually in a state of war somewhere. Many uniforms visible usually police and some transitory soldiers. Approx. 60-80% paid money by government to help re-election of incumbents. Strong regulations. Large prison population. Executions both home and abroad. Drug Wars, high alcohol consumption mainly commercial and some home made. Corruption mainly between business (especially banking groups) and governments. Used by USA, Russia, UK and China. Due to collapse soon possibly into either Capitalism or Communism.

Communism works with paper and food as money. Many uniforms often in groups. Troop carriers pass through cities, tanks on roads. Heavy regulations. Medium prison populations, lots of executions in prison, police stations, homes. Drug wars. Extreme alcohol consumption mainly home made. Corruption often only way of living. Not really used much anymore. Can only be revived after destruction of the middle class.

Totalitarianism works with almost everything including slavery as money and rarely with gold and silver as there isn’t any. Military regulations in total control. Uniforms everywhere, outright orders on threat and use of summary executions. Very small prison population. Corruption the norm. North Korea main user. Possibly about to try Fascism or self immolation.

Some of your definitions are interesting, but capitalism with 30% of corporate profits going to everyone equally? That is not capitalism but a recipe for disaster. If I get that much for dong nothing I am going fishing. Someone else can worry about work.

Exactly. As the future progresses the availability of human work should decrease as intelligent systems take over. And as a successful shareholder in your country you should have the option to go fishing when you want to and have enough money to do so. Surely in a great economic system the primary objective is to enjoy your life without feeling like a slave?

Are you missing my point or ignoring it? If there is no self interest motivation there will be no profit to split up. There is no such thing as a free lunch. I like your small government concept but we must require productivity for reward. Work in the future need not be onerous as technological advancements make things better but someone has to keep the mechanism working

I must be missing it as I thought I had covered it adequately. Sorry about that. I'll try again.

"If there is no self interest motivation there will be no profit to split up. There is no such thing as a free lunch."

Working off the US 2005 Federal Budget the payments came out at about $63 per person per week. Not really enough to laze around on though hopefully a much higher figure would be the final result. The main point is for that money to be taken away from the government and used either as savings or for consumption to stimulate growth. Governments destroy wealth they don't produce it. We must to everything in our power to keep governments poor. While they are poor we are rich. For the last 40 years it has been the opposite.

Page 136 of Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' say's "It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch."

"but someone has to keep the mechanism working". I'm not advocating we all turn in Well's 'Eloi' from the Time Machine and I don't think we can because humankind is very inquisitive. I would just like to see more time for play for anyone who wanted it. Play time is actually the best way to invent new things.

Thank you for the clarification. The only problem I have with your idea is the nature of government. Inevitably politicians and bureaucrats, and there will still be some, will covet the money paid out to individuals and argue they can spend it better and more wisely. Of course that is not true but it seems through history enough of the electorate buys in to that idea to bring the relationship back to what we have today.

"but it seems through history enough of the electorate buys in to that idea to bring the relationship back to what we have today."

Yes but once the paper money system fails then it takes with it those politicians and bureaucrats who lived by it. Gold and silver as money will stabilize the economy quite quickly and produce a much smaller and weaker government incapable of paying off supporters.

As Churchill said : "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have benn tried from time to time"
-------------------------

Actually Democracies suck, they devolve into mob rule and chaos, where only the the lowest common denominator prevail. They work only if the population has some level of wherewithal (sacrifice), sense of solidarity (nationalism) and common identity.

Republics and Enlightened Dictatorships are much more superior forms of government.

The vast majority of the richest and happiest countries are democracies while the poorest are the least democractic. Some of these same countries had initially popular dictators, like hitler, mussolini, franco and hirohito but fared much better after their removal.

While I also like the sound of the benevolent dictator, the empirical evidence strongly supports Churchill's assertion.

...but let me add that the tradition of "Parliamentary Democracy" is what Churchill was talking about. Spurring the yanks into WWII aside, that Presidential nonsense doesn't differentiate navigation from piloting. As soon as you confuse the head of state with chief executive you have very much the same thing as that Enlightened Fascism or Republicanism that Hyun was harping about. About as "superior" as pissing while you look for the can.

I also think the Parliamentary system is better but I don't agree because both system's contain the most important thing about democracy: the ability to easily change your leaders. I know going from Gillard to Abbott may not seem like really going anywhere. But in the century of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, PolPot, Mao, Pinochet, Mugabe and so on, it is quite a nice luxury.

As Churchill said : "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have benn tried from time to time" : can this sentence be applied to capitalism ? That is the question KAL asks, as our era is troubled by financial crises, during which people wonder about changing of economic system.
The trial isn't about judging ccapitalism, but deciding which one is the less dangerous for our societies.

Lets be honest here and call thing what they really are Europe and the US are socialistic and thus the stagnation and huge debts.

If they were capitalistic government would never have bailed out the rot in failed banks and businesses, old inefficiencies would have been removed and new competitiveness would have sprung up allowing economic growth, instead we have zombie banks, companies and nations, the glory of socialism maintaining the status quo.

pure capitalism has not existed in a very long time because people deemed it unacceptable to have businesses with 0 accountability and 0 regulations to follow.

Sometimes pure capitalism isn't the best choice. The 2008 financial crisis was very tame compared to what could have resulted if those governments said "it isn't capitalist to bail them out." Sometimes its better to live with the slight inconvenience of greedy bankers in exchange for avoiding the economic pandemonium of a true financial system collapse (see Great Depression and 1930s).

Hundreds of people who suffered from consequent "socialist" or "communist" governments may beg to disagree.

Africa screwed itself better through endless wars that it was ever screwed by colonialism, Mao did worse to China that Opium wars (which, by the way, only opened China to world trade, simply ending the monopoly of a few "princelings" on dealing with foreigners), so can be said about dictatorships of Laos, Burma and Cambodia, and the list goes on.

Keep in mind that those same "colonialist" Europeans were fighting each other all the time, more often than not with a lot more brutality than applied to colonies.

There were a few really spectacular cases of the colonialism, like, say, Belgian Congo, but its horrors, just as the "backwardness" of Europe through history, are simply legends inserted into high school textbooks in the 60es and 70es when Europeans believed in progress a lot more and were tired of wars and oppressive governments.

You forget to mention that in all those "endless" wars that plagued not only Africa, but also Latin America, the Middle East or Southeast Asia, Western powers were backing and financing at least one of the sides (if not all), to ensure the protection of their geopolitical and economic interests (i.e., being able to plunder their natural resources at will).

So yes, totalitarian communist regimes were atrocious enough, but their own internal contradictions led to a fairly quick collapse. The few that have not imploded, nor "evolved" into capitalist dictatorships, are on their way. Capitalism, on the other hand, continues polluting our environment, burning our dwindling natural resources and accumulating wealth int the hands of an ever-smaller elite while the majority's living conditions plunge around the planet as we speak.

I doubt the consequences of a few decades of "untamed" communism can possibly match the ravages of the past (and coming) centuries of unbridled Western colonialism and capitalism.

Froy, you must have missed the conditions in eastern and central Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. Entire towns blanketed in carbon and soot. Poverty everywhere. Yes, capitalism must have some controls put on it but it does not come near the potential for misery an unchecked government monopoly on power has.

Well, this cartoon is about capitalism and not about colonialism. But I get your drift, Colonialism should be included in the cage on the right alongside communism and the others, but then again why will a British publication do that ever?

And you must have missed the conditions in RussIa after the glorious arrival of capitalism. Before nobody was rich, but now everybody but a handful of billionaires have seen their living conditions and life expectancy plummet to levels unseen since Czarist times. I won't be the one to defend repressive dictatorships, but that does not imply any virtue for the neoliberal capitalist dogma that dominates mainstream economic thinking and that is taking us all (including that 1% profiting from it) down the sinkhole.

Colonialism was an integral part of Western capitalism, without which its success would have been impossible. Obtaining the necessary raw materials from other peoples' lands and forcing them to consume their manufactures was essential to the creation and expansion of the British Empire. Modern times made that kind of arrangements impracticable, but other formulas to achieve the same results have since been put in place. That's why some describe modern Western relations with the Developing World as "neocolonialism" or "imperialism".

Froy, I must concede the problems with attempting to install a system never before seen in Russia have been formatible. Corruption is a problem in any system ever devised. In this case it appears the corrupt and ruthless were better organized and quicker to act than people wanting to play fair and achieve a better life. It is of course an ongoing game. Hopefully we will see things improve for the average citizen in Russia and other countries in the area.

We must remember Russians have never in history had either democracy or capitalism. It will take time and involve missteps for them to learn to make the system work for them. It may or may not be relevant but back in 1966 my Money and Banking teacher said "We are not having trouble with the Soviet Union because it is communist. We are having trouble with them because they are Russians.

Don't think so at all!! Who was was escaping over the Berlin Wall from Capitalist and Democratic West Berlin into Communist East Germany??? Yes some weird ideologues emigrated from West to East Germany but they didn't have to risk their lives to do so and no one stopped them! Their freedom to choose only was negated once they got to Communist control! Nazi Germany was popular with its populace until the World Domination program turned into a nation destroying counter program and total loss!

Capitalism is an economic system just like socialism, communism, and feudalism. All 4 of those have flaws, but capitalism has a few key advantages on the other 3 systems. feudalism doesn't work because the accompanying political system doesn't allow for the competition and innovation that spurs economic growth. Communism (Soviet style command economy, not a government) has the same lack of competition issues as feudalism at a macroeconomic level, but small kibbutzim in Israel have proven that very small scale communism within a capitalist system is feasible. Socialism functions in a free market, but the heavy wealth redistribution associated with socialism can stifle economic innovation. Capitalism fixes these problems but the price is a large inequality between the highest and lowest earners.

Americans typically embrace the ideas of free market capitalism and competition. The "American System" with a limited social safety net and free market capitalism has worked fairly well. America has high levels of both social and economic mobility, a very high per capita GDP, and the largest economy in the world. The capitalism with a safety net may have its flaws, but clearly it has worked in the US for the past 236 years and counting. While many people say the system is a horrible system, they need to look at the results and they will see that this cartoon is correct; capitalism may have its flaws with wealth distribution, but it beats the other 3 for sure.

Those who believe that the U.S. has the "best" system likely haven't traveled very far nor examined other countries. Socialistic democracies like Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and others have far better educational systems and social safety nets; some even have a higher GDP. The United States is now a pseudo-democracy, dominated by an entrenched & corrupt corporate oligarchy and a bloated military-industrial complex. Paid corporate lobbyists write legislation, which is passed on the the staffs of senators and congressmen who have accepted millions in "campaign contributions". The U.S. clearly has the best democracy that money can buy.

"America has high levels of both social and economic mobility".
Wrong.
Contrary to the Disneyland propaganda, Americans born poor, die poor.
Americans born rich, die rich.
The one-in-a-million story beloved of Hollywood is a one-in-a-million story.
Social mobility in America is lower than in Western Europe, and lower than in Canada.

You cannot reasonably compare the US with any small socialist European nation. I think relative socialism can work on a small scale, when your country is the size of say Switzerland. Not when its a massive, multi-ethnic republic like the US with some 300 million people.

Look at the Soviet Union, socialism on that scale cannot work. Also, I hate to bust your bubble but the USSR and China, two of the largest socialist nations to ever exist are/were rampant with corruption. The corruption you insinuate is not solely a product of Capitalism but is prevalent in any massive, federated entity. You don't think the EU is corrupt?

One last thing. Any large nation-state that provides for its own defense (and the defense of all of it's allies) will inevitably come to have a massive military industrial complex. When you are a small socialist nation that does not need to worry about providing for it's own defense because your larger capitalist ally protects you, then you won't have a "bloated military industrial complex".

At the end of the day somebody has to pay for everything. Nothing is free. Money makes the world go round and capitalism pays for your European utopia. You're welcome.

And "pseudo-democracy"? The US has never been a democracy. It has always been a Republic and has always been dominated by a wealthy upper class (the founding fathers). What US history books have you been reading?

no one has a higher GDP than the US, its the largest economy in the world meaning its GDP is larger than any other nation. The US may not have the highest PER CAPITA GDP but that is a different statistic.

The US has higher income inequality and more restrained social mobility than it had in the past. The restrained social mobility can be fixed via improved education and re-allocation of domestic spending away from many wasteful programs and into programs that create good citizens who can go support themselves with jobs (Workfare over Welfare). The income inequality results from inheritances and the shift toward a skills based economy in the US that rewards the few skilled people with more money than the non-talented, but that happens in any capitalist system to begin with.

That 'bloated' US defense budget pays to defend not only the US, it also extends aid to bodies that need military help like the countries in NATO, Israel, and UN missions. The model European nations with no military rely on US protection and that bloated budget for defense.

The US is a representative democracy, also known as a Republic. People vote for politicians and the politicians do whatever they think is best while they are in office. If people don't like it they vote them out of office, regardless of how much money gets spent on a campaign.

The US system is not perfect, but if you judge the system based on results (world's largest economy, strong military, lower poverty rates, very innovative) and not on pre-determined, anti-American hatred, then it is clear the American system is one of the better systems around.